Twitter Assistant insights from real users: The GATE

Since launching our Twitter Assistant in November, we’ve been reaching out to real users to see what they’ve been able to learn for their Twitter strategies from it. These are the insights shared from W. Andrew Powell, Editor-In-Chief at The GATE.

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1. Which personalized insights from the Twitter Assistant have been the most valuable to your team?

There’s so much valuable data in the Twitter Assistant, and I’ve used all of it to help shape strategies. The most helpful tool, however, was the Contributors data, which helps me to see which accounts, brands, or users are interacting the most in our conversations on Twitter. That has helped guide not only our content, but our use of hashtags, mentions, and timing for tweets to reach the best possible accounts for our content.

2. Do you have an example of a small thing you were able to change and see results from, via the feedback from your Assistant?

Looking at the best time to Tweet information has been very helpful in shaping when I post and how much I’m sharing. Since video performs the best in our Tweets, according to the Twitter Assistant, I’ve also focused more on sharing video clips and links directly to our YouTube videos.

3. What was the most surprising thing you learned from the Twitter Assistant?

Overall it was interesting to see the Tweets with the most impressions, and the reach of specific hashtags. I use hashtags a lot in Tweets, but understanding their reach helps me choose the right hashtags.

The GATE is sharing at better times throughout the day, focusing on using media in our posts, and looking for conversations we can have that develop our reach and followers.

If I had to sum it up, it’s an overall perfecting of our strategy.

5. What do you hope to get from the Assistant in the future? (Anything from new features to how you might incorporate what you learn in your Twitter strategy going forward.)

I would love to see a feature that could give guidance on Tweets that missed the mark, either through bad timing, or missing hashtags, potentially by comparing our Tweets to other more successful Tweets. Looking at our most successful Tweets seems to only be half the picture, and I would love to learn where we missed the mark.